New-to-DVD review: Smiley

Two minor celebrities have supporting roles in Smiley, the latest slasher/ urban legend horror film.  What's interesting to me is that whenever these stars appear on the screen, the quality of not just the acting, but also the writing, increases to quite a noticeable extent.  How to explain this?  Did the writers already know they would get a couple of respected veteran actors to play these roles, and therefore put a little more effort into their scenes?

Smiley tells the story of Ashley, a naive college freshman who has lived such a sheltered life that she is awed and nearly overwhelmed by virtually every aspect of college life.  (Her "wow, so this is college!" attitude is a bit over-written, to be honest, but it's a minor quibble.)  As Ashley adjusts to college parties, roommates, etc., she also learns of a new aspect to college life, everyone's obsession with Internet chats.  Ashley's classmates all seem to love nothing more than talking with each other, and even complete strangers, on the Internet.  But one aspect of this fad is highly disturbing:  Smiley.  Smiley -- so-named because of the hideously grinning mask he wears -- is a serial killer who, according to urban legend, instantly appears anytime someone types "I did it for the lulz" three times in a row in an Internet chat.

Now, with that set-up, you'd think that Smiley would be the easiest killer in the world to avoid.  He has to be summoned in a very deliberate manner.  Just don't summon him!  Yet for various reasons -- curiosity, dares, disbelief, sadism, etc. -- Smiley is summoned again and again, and so, of course, college kids start dying left and right.

This is all pretty by-the-numbers.  That's not to say that it's necessarily bad; if you tend to enjoy this type of simplistic horror formula (I happen to be one of those people), you'll like Smiley.  If this doesn't sound like your cup of tea, trust that instinct.

But what elevates Smiley above purely standard schlock, are those scenes with the Big Name actors.  Okay, so they're not really big name actors unless compared to the no-name main cast, but still.

Roger Bart, best known for a key supporting role in Desperate Housewives, and as Carmen Ghia, the flamboyantly gay theater director in The Producers, has a supporting role as Clayton, a philosophy professor whose classroom lectures, unbeknown to the prof himself, provide a running commentary on the events in the film.  The dialogue in every one of Bart's scenes is written with refreshing humor and a surprising amount of insight; with the formulaic set-up and presentation that Smiley mostly provides, I expected some good but mindless entertainment, but the Professor's scenes actually make you laugh and think more than most movies of this ilk ever dare try.  I especially liked the Professor's lecture on moral nihilism, which really gets to the heart of just why these damn kids keep summoning Smiley even after it's been proven time and again that he is indeed real.  Hint: it's not just a matter of "dumb college kids."

The other minor celeb is Keith David, whose generic name belies the fact that, trust me, you've seen him in stuff.  He's best known as the narrator of such documentaries as Ken Burns's films, and the History Channel's The Bible, but he's also been in a ton of movies, including There's Something About Mary, in which he plays Cameron Diaz's African-American father.  In Smiley, he has a fun cameo as Detective Diamond, a homicide cop who patiently tries to explain to Ashley exactly why the police department can't waste its time trying to track down alleged supernatural killers who are magically summoned on the Internet, and then disappear without leaving so much as a trace that a crime was committed, all on the word of a college freshman who freely admits she's off her psych meds.  It's a small role, to be sure, but David has fun with it, playing the character as equally amused and frustrated by Ashley's wild story.  The scene is brilliantly performed by David, and is also easily the best-written non-Roger-Bart scene in the movie, providing some self-deprecating humor by admitting and poking fun at the absurdity of the movie's own plotline.

Do I recommend Smiley?  That depends purely on whether or not you enjoy this type of horror film.  This is not a movie like The Cabin in the Woods, whose ingenuity causes it to transcend the standard quality of the genre.  I'd say that most scenes in Smiley stick pretty close to formula, including populating a very simple story with very one-dimensional characters.  But then Roger Bart and Keith David show up, and for those brief shining moments, the writers suddenly bring an A-game to the type of movie that usually doesn't even warrant an A-game.  So yeah, I enjoyed it.